Webmaster Server – relaunch of a webmaster forum

Webmaster Serve if one of the fastest growing webmaster forums online today. Webmaster Serve first went online four years ago, it was set up by a group of webmasters who wanted a forum to exchange ideas and trade. The forum change hands a year later, when it was sold to webmastering veteran,Temi Odurinde.

The forum was very low on the priorities of the new owner, who did not build on the works of the founding owners, after years of languishing in the cyber wilderness, cobwebs were dusted off Webmaster Serve a few weeks ago, new webmasters were invited to join and existing members notified of the re-launch.

Marketing campaign to bring Webmaster Serve to the attention of the webmaster communities is now on going. The webmaster marketplace section of the forum is expected to be one of the busiest forums in the next few months. Webmaster can post items for sale free of charge, items you can find at the Marketplace range from domain names to established websites. There is also a section for link exchange, services exchange and website content trading.

Like most Webmaster forum and indeed other forums online today, registering and using webmaster serve is completely free of charge.

Other forum of interest at webmaster serve includes the web hosting forum, the forum lobby where you can post off topic and non webmaster related issues.

Basics of a Web Host Background Check

Choosing a web host is not easy, especially when you’re shopping around for a new one after a bitter experience with your old one. Some hosts may seem like good options when you check out the services they provide and others may come highly recommended by friends or people you know. But you need to make sure that you’re rushing from the frying pan into the fire by taking things slowly, weighing the pros and cons of said host, and making sure that all your needs are met before signing on the dotted line. Here are a few tips that come in handy when you’re checking out a prospective web host.

• Talk to other clients of the provider if you know them personally. Web hosts that come with a high degree of personal recommendation are usually reliable service providers.
• Call or email the hosting company and check out the services they offer. Talk to them in detail to see if they meet all your needs. Ask about emergency services and those that can be provided even when no advance notice is given.
• Check the web for customer feedback. Blogs, forums and personal websites are a valuable source of information when you’re looking to ferret out the negative aspects of any product or service provider. While some rants may arise out of sheer spite, others are legitimate and bear looking into.
• You can judge a hosting company by looking at the amount of time the staff make you wait when you call or the response time when you email them. Customer service is an important aspect to consider when you’re placing the responsibility for your server in the hands of a web hosting provider.
• Enlist the help of a utility tool that allows you to check information related to web hosts, like uptime, the kind of software they run, and other information about colocation centers and carrier hotels.
• If you’re going to responsible for the maintenance, upkeep and general troubleshooting aspects of your server, make sure you choose a data center that’s geographically near you. You don’t want to be spending all your time travelling long distances just to make sure your server is up and running.
• If you know of other sites that your prospective web host is responsible for hosting, check out the speed and access times to get an idea of what your visitors are liable to experience.
• Talk to the staff at the center about being to upgrade or downgrade your service features as and when you desire and about remote troubleshooting options and help.
• And last but certainly not the least, read the fine print thoroughly before you sign on the dotted line. There’s no use arguing till you’re blue in the face over anything once you’ve moved over all operations to your new web host. It’s too late to change hosts again (remember, if you change hosts frequently, search engine bots tend to ignore your site) so you’re going to feel bound to accept what you get rather than demand what you need if you don’t go over the documentation with a fine tooth comb.

This post was written by Sarah Scrafford. She writes on similar topics for  web design school.  You may contact her at sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com

Ten essential features in a shopping cart software

As an online retailer you need to have a great software shopping environment for your customers to use. Shopping cart software packages come in all shapes and sizes and it is important that you find out which features are essential for your business before you make a purchase. You may not need all of the features that are out there, but how do you decide what bits and pieces are essential for you. This can be hard sometimes, here is a listing of some of the 10 most essential features of a good shopping cart software solution, things that no online merchant should be without.

1. A good shopping cart application should provide a fantastic user experience. Shoppers at your site should be able to show without the need to register as a site user first, this requirement has been know to make potential shoppers abandon shopping at ecommerce sites.

2. You need a package that can calculate the applicable shipping and tax charges for a location and make them known to the buyer as soon as possible in the transaction process.

3. You also need a customisable and flexible relationship between your cart and the rest of your web site. A lot of online shoppers get fed up with shopping carts that do not interact properly with a merchant’s main browsing pages. A ‘return to’ shopping cart that continually updates itself is essential for a streamlined business.

4. An automatic email confirmation feature is the third essential that I will list, as this gives a buyer a sense of confidence and automates the receipt sending procedure.

5. The fourth essential is that the software must use a respected anti fraud solution to help reduce fraudulent transactions.

6. Use third party validators such as ScanAlert or Verisign to keep your safety in check and increase your credibility amongst your customer base.

7. The sixth essential feature in a shopping cart application is the ability for a customer to control and modify the shipping information of their purchase. Studies have shown that a great many transactions are abandoned because a customer is unable to find or modify the delivery information.

8. The seventh feature I will mention is to have software with the ability to use discount codes and voucher codes in the checkout process. These are an increasing promotional tool for online business and even if you are not using them now, you may be in the future.

9. The eighth feature I am listing is to have a cart which a customer can print out or email in order to keep a copy of the transaction. The last two features I will mention may seem obvious but many free and open source shopping carts do not have them included.

10. A shopping cart must include credit card processing, preferably in real time, and also its own integrated payment gateway. Many cheap and free solutions do not offer this and instead use services like Paypal and Google for their gateway, this makes you reliant on other organisations and is much less flexible for you in the long run.

You can find out more about shopping cart and ecommerce at Boss Cart ecommerce software. You can discuss ecommerce related issues at Boss Cart Forums.

Boss Cart Premium – Special Offer

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Boss Cart, the ecommerce software company recently announce a partnership with Velnet designs recently. The partnership makes Boss Cart Premium shopping cart available
to Velnet customers at a discount of up to 50%. Boss Cart Premium is a PHP based ecommerce shopping cart system, it offers a complete out-of-the box online selling solution.

that supports product catalogue of over 10,000 products, with each product displaying up to 7 pictures. Each product has its own unique url, which make Boss Cart Premium eshop search engine friendly. Other search engine friendly features includes ability to export your entire product catalogue to Google’s dedicated  shopping engine; Froogle (also know as Google base).  Define custom title and meta tag for each product, categories and sub categories.
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